YouTube collected global views of movie trailers over the past 12-months (May 2016 - 2017) for every film in Google’s knowledge graph. For 90s films, the top three most popular movie trailers were 1) Titanic 2) Toy Story and 3) The Lion King. For 80s films, the top three most popular movie trailers were 1) Ghostbusters 2) The Little Mermaid and 3) The Shining. See below chart for the fully ranked list of movies.
As we approach Labor Day weekend, one of the biggest home entertainment and movie going weekends of the year, YouTube wanted to take a look at how reboots and sequels drive interest and popularity in the original films. We’ve uncovered some pretty interesting consumer viewing trends when it comes to movie trailers and how new reboots impact views of original trailers.
See below for some of the data highlights – if you have any specific questions, let me know and I can work with Google/YouTube on pulling anything extra you might need or find particularly interesting.
- Reboots drive popularity - searches and views on YouTube have shown that reboots and sequels drive interest in original films of that title. The top 10 trailers from the ‘80s and ‘90s several have had sequels including The Blair Witch Project, Star Wars, Blade Runner, American Pie, Toy Story, The Evil Dead, and Ghostbusters.
- Ghostbusters reboot rekindled interest in the original - As the #1 viewed movie trailer from the 80s, Ghostbusters was averaging 70,000 views/month in 2015. In 2016, the film was rebooted and views more than tripled to over 300,000 views/month.
- The new Jumanji is following consumer viewing trends: Premiering this December, the film’s original trailer from 1995 ranked among the top 50 most-viewed from the decade and have increased 60% over the first half of 2016.
- What does this mean for the highly anticipated Blade Runner 2049?
- Blade Runner (1982) was the #8 most popular trailer from the 1980s, suggesting a strong, existing fan base for the sequel
- The upcoming sequel to Blade Runner premiering October 6th has renewed even more interest in the original. Views for the Blade Runner trailer were approximately 157,000/month in the first half of 2017, a 112% increase over the first half of 2016.
- Blade Runner (1982) was the #8 most popular trailer from the 1980s, suggesting a strong, existing fan base for the sequel
